Zoey the Blood Mage (19 XP)

The Theme

"Zoey's relentless hunt for the wicked has led her to some old ruins where she found an old blade. While hesitant at first, she decided to take it. The moment she picked it up, a sudden surge of immense power rushed her body and she was filled with a big hunger to hunt down monsters. Zoey ran into the nearby forest, hoping to find some ghouls to kill in order to satisfy her bloodlust. After searching deep into the woods, her attempts fruitless, she was horrified and suffered from inner pain. She needed to kill something immediately! The pain was so immense that she started screaming. All of a sudden, a pack of wolves appeared and quickly surrounded her. Zoey turned at them, taking an aggressive stance. The wolves rushed at her and she raised her blade, cutting each one of them to pieces fast and hard with no remorse, completely ignoring the wolves' bites, feeling no pain. Right then, a ghoul emerged from the shadows, slowly approaching Zoey with clearly no friendly intentions. Zoey turned at it, slightly smiling, as she was very eager to end the creature's life. She pointed the blade at the creature and rushed towards it. Before the ghoul even had the chance to react, the blade was skewered onto its body with such force that it penetrated it. The evil creature was dead and Zoey was standing on top of its dead body, feeling extremely satisfied for the outcome. Her bloodlust was satisfied. It was only then that she realised that something unusual was going on with her mind. Zoey started moving around slowly and as she moved, she was starting to see things in the night. Even though it was dark, Zoey's vision was beginning to expand, allowing her to see more things around her. The sky was turning light blue, as if it was dawn. She was now able to see and identify things that she couldn't ever before. Embracing her new power, Zoey focused her mind and a sudden white light emerged from the sky shedding light upon the whole place, as if it was day. She was impressed. She walked around the forest, observing all those new things she was seeing, wondering if they are even real. As she freed her mind, the light slowly began to fade away and the darkness gradually returned. Zoey was both thrilled and scared. She now had a new power, a Sixth Sense. Zoey decided to turn back home, but she was unsure what to do with the blade. It was a gift and a curse. She thought that if she left it, some evil being might find it and use its powers for dark purposes, so she decided to keep it for the time being and head home. She was also well aware that evil beings exist in this world and she was more than happy to put their lives to an end using the blade. Zoey was walking away from the forest calm, but as she walked, her hunger for blood was beginning to grow again..."

The Deck

This is a Zoey Samaras deck that leans towards the combat role but has elements that enables her to gather clues. She's not exactly "flex", but she can pull her weight on clueing.

MVP of the deck is the The Hungering Blade. We 've pretty much built around this card and we have a lot of cards to support it. But let's see the problems that The Hungering Blade has:

• It's only 1 card in the deck.
• It gives no initial boost.
• It may cause you to take additional horror during the game.

This deck tries to solve all those problems and make The Hungering Blade a solid weapon. How we solve each one:

• Mr. "Rook" can find it easily and we also have Prepared for the Worst.
• Beat Cop and Reliable give us additional boosts.
• On the Hunt can help us draw more enemies in order to feed our Bloodlust successfully.

After we get the Blade down and we have at least 1 Reliable attached to it things are easy. We 're regularly attacking at 5 and we can get further boosts from Beat Cop and the second Reliable. But what about Bloodlusts? Don't we want to draw them after we get enough offerings? Of course we do and, again, Mr. "Rook" is the solution! You can use Mr. "Rook" to search for Bloodlusts while looking for other cards! With Calling in Favors you 'll get a lot of milleage from Mr. "Rook" and that can allow you to use a Bloodlust for the extra damage and still be able to find it again if you have enough offerings. Also consider that with Beat Cops, Reliables and Bloodlusts combined together, your can reach as high as 9 or 10, during some periods.

Regarding clue gathering, Sixth Sense is your best friend. It can be boosted by our single copy of Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, which, again, can be found by Mr. "Rook". Then we also have Scene of the Crime and Evidence! which we can combine with On the Hunt for auto-clues.

To talk about generic stuff, Enchanted Blade is only a back-up weapon. Even though we have only 3 weapons in the deck, we have a solid chance to see one early because of so much search that we run. Calling in Favors will allow you to get more value from your allies and it can help search for Mr. "Rook", which is really important. In this deck, we are also way more likely to see Zoey's Cross, a privilege which other Zoey decks usually don't have. Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, as we said can be found with Mr. "Rook" and it's totally ok not to play it early, as we actually need only 1 evidence on it for the willpower boost. Getting all 3 evidence is nice for the sanity boost as well, but it's not really necessary. Keen Eye can help with Hungering Blade attacks, if you 're missing your Reliables and it can also boost if for some reason you don't have your Sixth Sense early. Smoking Pipe is a bit of a safety net in case you see your Bloodlusts without having enough offerings, but you aso have good soakers in the name of Beat Cop and Mr. "Rook".

An issue you will have with this deck is that you will see Smite the Wicked (almost) every game, because of Mr. "Rook". But it's not that bad, to be honest. With Mr. "Rook" you will probably draw it early and that can be good at times. First off, consider that most scenarios don't begin with every location in play, so the distance between you and the enemy may not be that large. Secondly, if you have The Hungering Blade you can get an extra offering from it to feed your Bloodlust. So, overall it's not really that problematic.

As for other upgrades, I 'd say the most important other card you would want in your deck is Stand Together. It gives you solid card draw and resource gain to find your stuff more easily and to pay for your assets, as well as be able to utilize Keen Eye in case you need it.

I also don't really recommend this deck for solo, as you see fewer enemies there and your Bloodlusts can be rather problematic.